


Aubade

by Dearest_Solitude



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Murder, Not actually that shippy but it can be if you squint, Poisoning, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25785559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dearest_Solitude/pseuds/Dearest_Solitude
Summary: Olaf stares at the little girl across from him, searching her face for the lie, but there isn’t one. A sting at the back of his throat, a slight buzz in the base of his skull chases away the last of his doubts and he sits back with a dry laugh.“You finally did it,” he says, crossing his legs.
Relationships: Violet Baudelaire/Count Olaf
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	Aubade

> _"And so it stays just on the edge of vision,_
> 
> _A small unfocused blur, a standing chill_
> 
> _That slows each impulse down to indecision._
> 
> _Most things may never happen: this one will"_
> 
> — _Aubade_ by Philip Larkin

Olaf stares at the little girl across from him, searching her face for the lie, but there isn’t one.

She is wearing a black velvet dress with a high, lace-lined neck and long sleeves cinched around her slender wrists. She had her hair tied back. When she’d come in, holding a chilled bottle of wine on a silver tray with two glasses—their nightly ritual—he’d asked her whose funeral she was dressed for. He hadn’t realized it was theirs. 

A sting at the back of his throat, a slight buzz in the base of his skull chases away the last of his doubts and he sits back with a dry laugh.“You finally did it,” he says, crossing his legs. 

She stares back, unblinking, hands clasped in front of her. The bottle sits between them like a beacon. He imagines grabbing it, smashing it across her face in last, desperate bid for power. But he doesn’t. She’s beaten him fair and square.

“Like mother, like daughter, huh?” He smiles dourly, ignoring the pressure growing behind his breastbone. Violet’s face is paler than usual, her lips pinched, and he knows she’s starting to feel it too. “The poison apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

She looks at him, gaze steely and unfaltering. There is no apology, no regret.

_That_ she certainly didn’t get from her mother. He wonders whether she learned from him or Bertie. He’d like to think it was him, that’s she’s taken something from dear old Olaf but knows deep down that probably isn’t the case.

“What do you mean?” Her voice is quiet and he almost misses the way it shakes. Well, he can’t blame her. A murder-suicide can’t be easy to stomach for someone as noble as her.

“About what?” There is pain now, an ache somehow both sharp and dull, radiating downward from the top of his spine. His head throbs. He fights the urge to hunch forward, clutch at himself. Violet’s shoulder rise just slightly, and she blinks once, twice, again. She drank less than him, but she’s so much smaller. He wonders who will kick it first.

“‘Like mother, like daughter.’ What does that mean?” 

“Oh, your mother had an affinity for poison too. Killed my parents with some, may they rest in pieces.” He grins as the remaining blood leaves her face, one hand reaching up to steady herself on the edge of the table.

“No she didn’t. My mother was a good person. She wasn’t…”

“Like you?” Olaf finishes cruelly.

Violet stares at the wine bottle, does not respond.

“Don’t sweat it, kid. People are rarely who they seem like. Some beat their children in the privacy of their homes, others kill their best friend’s parents with poisoned darts in front of a large audience. Say,” he flicks his arm out in front of him, checking his watch. “What’d you use, anyway? Her poison worked in a couple of seconds. You sure you didn’t forget to add the dose in?”

She hadn’t. His headache is growing worse with every second and his peripheral just went blurry. The strain behind his eyes is becoming impossible to ignore. His lungs burn, like he’s been running. It’s disorienting and uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t explain if he tried.

“Cyanide,” she says. She looks about as bad as he feels, lips pale purple and trembling. “It seemed… classic.”

“Classic?” Olaf repeats in amazement. He scoffs, suddenly angry. “This is _murder,_ not poetry!”

Cyanide! Like a fucking mystery novel. The girl in the dining room with the wine bottle. He wonders what the Punctilio will have to say about that!

“It’s not like I have much experience with this!” she shouts, and he realizes there are tears streaming down her cheeks. His first urge is to wipe them away, hold her as she shakes, but he crushes the thought. The familiarity of fondness is now bitter, tinted by her betrayal, no matter how understandable.

“Why poison yourself too?” he asks. The words come out slurred, his tongue slimy and thick against the roof of his mouth. He’s having trouble staying upright, and he can hear his heart pounding in his ears. “It would have been easy to just get rid of me.You could’ve joined your brat siblings afterwards.”

Her breath is coming in shallow pants that might have been sexy under different circumstances. She wraps her arms around her torso, sliding down in her chair. “I don’t know. I didn’t want…” Her mouth twists around empty air. Her eyelids flutter closed, brow furrowing from more than pain. 

She’s ashamed. “I’m so...angry. Mistrustful of everyone. In a couple minutes I’ll be a killer. If I lived to grow up like you...hateful… a murderer…” she gasps again, one hand flying to touch her head. She grits her teeth. “I’d never forgive myself.”

Sadness strikes him, truer than any dart though just as shocking.

“When did you lose your wonder?” The words leave his mouth before he can think better of them. He remembers a cheerful girl standing on his doorstep, comforting her siblings, optimistic in the face of tragedy. A clever girl, full of curiosity and invention. She made a grappling hook from scratch, she outsmarted him in every way she could. She looked at the world with desire and determination.

That girl is not the one in front of him. The cyanide might be killing her, but Violet Baudelaire is already dead.

What is left of her dies before he does, eyes flying wide with fear, fingers scraping at her chest. She gasps, falling to the floor, chair knocked on its back with a clatter. Olaf, resolute, stands on shaking legs and crosses the room to her. She’d still gasping hoarsely, like she can’t get enough air. Her face and fingers are blue. He kneels, wrapping his arms around her. She’s terrified. 

Her grip on his arm is tight enough to be painful. Then it isn’t. Her final gasp is small, soft, and her eyes meet his. She looks grateful, though that could be his imagination. She stills permanently. 

That leaves him to die alone. Selfish girl, can’t even stick around to bear witness to the dramatic end he deserves, huh? He rubs his throbbing temple. It does not help.

Somehow, even in his weakness, he is able to lift her in his arms, cradling her body as he stumbles up the stairs to his bed room. He can barely see as he lays her out on the bed, closing her eyes and crossing her little arms over her chest. Even then she doesn’t look like she could be sleeping. Death stills her in a way he has never seen before. It’s unsettling. She looks resplendent in her dress, though, pale with otherworldly beauty. Hindsight and all that—had he known tonight would be their last together, he would’ve dressed up himself, put on a record and danced with her first. 

_I would have made her laugh,_ he thinks. He can’t remember the last time he heard her laugh. 

His stomach is cramping enough to make him sweat as he makes his way around the bed and lays down beside her. He is curled on one side, an arm around his middle. Why did she have to die first?

“Can’t face your handiwork?” he mumbles. God, it hurts. He always imagined that when he died one day, it’d be with a grin and one-finger salute and he is almost annoyed to find himself anxious. Fear seems so… plebeian. He’s Count Olaf! He isn’t a coward!

But his head is swimming and he can’t feel his legs any longer and he is so, so scared. He wishes she had picked a quicker poison. Something that gave him less time for reflection.

When gasping becomes too painful, he simply stops. The room swims, colors bleeding into each other in the darkness. He reaches out and grasps Violet's hand and his fears mellow instantly. 

_Maybe I’ll see you again,_ he muses. It’s impossible to speak now, though he finds he has so much to say to the girl beside him. _If I don’t go to hell, I might go to heaven._ That’s a foolish thought. He’s never believed in an afterlife before, and if it does exist, the idea that he’d end up in a noble place is laughable.

 _If I don’t go to hell, I might go to heaven,_ he thinks again.

And then Count Olaf—villain, actor, orphan—dies.

**Author's Note:**

> Olaf's last thoughts are a reference to the song "Bad Bad Things" by AJJ. The title is stolen from the Philip Larkin poem. I can't say it inspired this fic, but it fits well anyway.


End file.
